Women Empowerment

 

Empowering Women in Rural Haryana

Arpana continues its efforts to strengthen the poorest of the poor families in 106 villages in 4 Blocks of Karnal District. Arpana has facilitated 946 self-help groups, with over 13,000 women members, enabling them to improve their socio-economic condition through savings, micro-credit loans, income generating activities, etc.

Achievements of Women’s Self-Help Groups

 Women’s self-help groups are gaining stability and adopting new processes. They can now conduct difficult bank transactions, including cashless, digital transfers in case of loans, etc. The savings of women are increasing. The collective cumulative savings of 946 self-help groups is Rs. 450,000,000 (Rs.45 crore). The loan limit for an individual member of her group is up to Rs. 250,000 (Rs. 2.5 lakh). All these factors combine to generate confidence and new energy amongst women members.

 Building a Vaccine Wall against COVID-19!

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Arpana responded to the Covid epidemic by making the Government’s efforts to vaccinate the population in Arpana’s 100 target villages, successful.

  •  Arpana trained 80 self-help group women to inform and motivate rural folk to get vaccinated.
  • SHG women accompanied nervous families to the Government Vaccine Centers for their inoculation.

94% of the population of 100 villages received the 1st dose and 77% of the population received the 2nd dose of vaccination by the end of December 2021!

From January to March 2022, 4 workshops were held for adolescent awareness creation and vaccination campaigns. 

 Building Capacities and Skills

The regular monthly training trainer workshop is a vital part of the empowerment process. Women’s confidence, communication skills, public speaking capacities, and general knowledge base are fostered. They also gain, an incrementally understanding of the entire structure, functioning of SHGs, their federation, and a spectrum of other issues.

 

  • Training of Trainers: 45 SHG women volunteers were trained for accounts in the target area of 106 villages.
  • Training for tailoring and Beauty Culture: 5 centers were started in 4 villages for income-generating activities.
  • Training on Mushroom Cultivation: 20 SHG women attended this training which enable women to meet essential needs and enhance their family’s quality of life.
  • Building SHG Women Volunteers’ Capacities as ‘Sahayaks’: SHG women volunteers are being trained as ‘Sahayaks’ to assist and accompany Differently Abled Persons on the path of development.

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 Federations of Women’s Self-Help Groups

Two Federations with 933 SHG members (448 and 485 groups respectively) are now becoming sustainable and are financially supporting activities like capacity building of trainers, monitoring of groups, and evaluations by trainers. The Unnati and Vikas Federations pay an annual dividend to member groups.78% SHGs received their share of the total Rs. 30,935,800 distributed in the FY 2021-22. Women look forward to their SHG dividends, for paying off loans, adding to savings, or just taking home!

Liaising & Networking

  • Liaison visits with bank officials to discuss the challenges women constantly face for unnecessary demands of documentation, uncooperative officials and repeated but non-productive visits to banks are raising their awareness that this is not acceptable interaction with Arpana’s SHG women.
  • Arpana is informing Government Officials about Arpana’s experiences with facilitating self-help groups which are now catalysts in village development. Particularly of how microcredit has empowered rural women and the differently abled.There is considerable interest in how these groups could be models for more extensive programs.
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  • A delegation of Pan India trainees of the Extension Education Institute (EEI), Nilokheri, visited the Milk Cooperative facilitated by Arpana, in village Taprana. The trainees were extremely impressed by the women’s confidence, drive, and abilities in running their dairy enterprise.